Hi Paolo,

Apologies if this causes any inconvenience.

Would you consider this patchset? It resolves several QEMU AMD vPMU issues, and
each patch has received a Reviewed-by from at least two reviewers.

Thank you very much!

Dongli Zhang

On 11/10/25 10:14 PM, Dongli Zhang wrote:
> This patchset addresses four bugs related to AMD PMU virtualization.
> 
> 1. The PerfMonV2 is still available if PERCORE if disabled via
> "-cpu host,-perfctr-core".
> 
> 2. The VM 'cpuid' command still returns PERFCORE although "-pmu" is
> configured.
> 
> 3. The third issue is that using "-cpu host,-pmu" does not disable AMD PMU
> virtualization. When using "-cpu EPYC" or "-cpu host,-pmu", AMD PMU
> virtualization remains enabled. On the VM's Linux side, you might still
> see:
> 
> [    0.510611] Performance Events: Fam17h+ core perfctr, AMD PMU driver.
> 
> instead of:
> 
> [    0.596381] Performance Events: PMU not available due to virtualization, 
> using software events only.
> [    0.600972] NMI watchdog: Perf NMI watchdog permanently disabled
> 
> To address this, KVM_CAP_PMU_CAPABILITY is used to set KVM_PMU_CAP_DISABLE
> when "-pmu" is configured.
> 
> 4. The fourth issue is that unreclaimed performance events (after a QEMU
> system_reset) in KVM may cause random, unwanted, or unknown NMIs to be
> injected into the VM.
> 
> The AMD PMU registers are not reset during QEMU system_reset.
> 
> (1) If the VM is reset (e.g., via QEMU system_reset or VM kdump/kexec) while
> running "perf top", the PMU registers are not disabled properly.
> 
> (2) Despite x86_cpu_reset() resetting many registers to zero, kvm_put_msrs()
> does not handle AMD PMU registers, causing some PMU events to remain
> enabled in KVM.
> 
> (3) The KVM kvm_pmc_speculative_in_use() function consistently returns true,
> preventing the reclamation of these events. Consequently, the
> kvm_pmc->perf_event remains active.
> 
> (4) After a reboot, the VM kernel may report the following error:
> 
> [    0.092011] Performance Events: Fam17h+ core perfctr, Broken BIOS 
> detected, complain to your hardware vendor.
> [    0.092023] [Firmware Bug]: the BIOS has corrupted hw-PMU resources (MSR 
> c0010200 is 530076)
> 
> (5) In the worst case, the active kvm_pmc->perf_event may inject unknown
> NMIs randomly into the VM kernel:
> 
> [...] Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 30 on CPU 0.
> 
> To resolve these issues, we propose resetting AMD PMU registers during the
> VM reset process
> 
> 
> Changed since v1:
>   - Use feature_dependencies for CPUID_EXT3_PERFCORE and
>     CPUID_8000_0022_EAX_PERFMON_V2.
>   - Remove CPUID_EXT3_PERFCORE when !cpu->enable_pmu.
>   - Pick kvm_arch_pre_create_vcpu() patch from Xiaoyao Li.
>   - Use "-pmu" but not a global "pmu-cap-disabled" for KVM_PMU_CAP_DISABLE.
>   - Also use sysfs kvm.enable_pmu=N to determine if PMU is supported.
>   - Some changes to PMU register limit calculation.
> Changed since v2:
>   - Change has_pmu_cap to pmu_cap.
>   - Use cpuid_find_entry() instead of cpu_x86_cpuid().
>   - Rework the code flow of PATCH 07 related to kvm.enable_pmu=N following
>     Zhao's suggestion.
>   - Use object_property_get_int() to get CPU family.
>   - Add support to Zhaoxin.
> Changed since v3:
>   - Re-base on top of Zhao's queued patch.
>   - Use host_cpu_vendor_fms() from Zhao's patch.
>   - Pick new version of kvm_arch_pre_create_vcpu() patch from Xiaoyao.
>   - Re-split the cases into enable_pmu and !enable_pmu, following Zhao's
>     suggestion.
>   - Check AMD directly makes the "compat" rule clear.
>   - Some changes on commit message and comment.
>   - Bring back global static variable 'kvm_pmu_disabled' read from
>     /sys/module/kvm/parameters/enable_pmu.
> Changed since v4:
>   - Re-base on top of most recent mainline QEMU.
>   - Add more Reviewed-by.
>   - All patches are reviewed.
> Changed since v5:
>   - Re-base on top of most recent mainline QEMU.
>   - Remove patch "kvm: Introduce kvm_arch_pre_create_vcpu()" as it is
>     already merged.
>   - To resolve conflicts in new [PATCH v6 3/9] , move the PMU related code
>     before the call site of is_tdx_vm().
> Changed since v6:
>   - Re-base on top of most recent mainline QEMU (staging branch).
>   - Add more Reviewed-by from Dapeng and Sandipan.
> 
> 
> Dongli Zhang (9):
>   target/i386: disable PerfMonV2 when PERFCORE unavailable
>   target/i386: disable PERFCORE when "-pmu" is configured
>   target/i386/kvm: set KVM_PMU_CAP_DISABLE if "-pmu" is configured
>   target/i386/kvm: extract unrelated code out of kvm_x86_build_cpuid()
>   target/i386/kvm: rename architectural PMU variables
>   target/i386/kvm: query kvm.enable_pmu parameter
>   target/i386/kvm: reset AMD PMU registers during VM reset
>   target/i386/kvm: support perfmon-v2 for reset
>   target/i386/kvm: don't stop Intel PMU counters
> 
>  target/i386/cpu.c     |   8 +
>  target/i386/cpu.h     |  16 ++
>  target/i386/kvm/kvm.c | 355 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
>  3 files changed, 332 insertions(+), 47 deletions(-)
> 
> branch: remotes/origin/staging
> base-commit: 593aee5df98b4a862ff8841a57ea3dbf22131a5f
> 
> Thank you very much!
> 
> Dongli Zhang
> 
> 


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